Idea the First: I was considering crossbows and their mechanics while in seminar today, and it occurred to me that what a range increment represents is your ability to hit a given target with different levels of accuracy. So, your range increment should increase if you can find a way to reduce the noise in your aiming mechanism. The long and short of it is that a crossbow bipod makes a lot of sense. No reason you can’t use it to stabilize your crossbow and add 10′ to your range increment. The caveat, of course, is that you must have something to rest it on, so you must be prone or near a steady object of appropriate height. All of my future D&D/Pathfinder games will include bipods, since I’ve always felt that crossbows don’t get enough love.

Idea the Second: Psi Phi will be hosting our semesterly Cookies ‘N’ Characters on Sunday, and I’ll be running either a Pathfinder adventure or a Shambles one-shot. Can’t decide which, so I’ll bring both to the event and let the players decide which they want. I’m going to have a lot of fun working up a Shambles adventure I think I’m going to call “Stacy’s Mom.” Yeah, that’s right. It’s gonna be crazy.

Idea the first: I’ve always wanted to introduce some sort of mechanic to play around with range increments, but I’ve rarely seen combats where a range increment was called into play. What you have suggested is simple enough. I might even extend the idea to say that a non-bipoded weapon could benefit from the same bonus if the firer has some way of bracing the weapon (like against a ledge or a wall or such.)

Idea the second: I find that one shots are best for running systems that you normally wouldn’t. Shambles, while an entertaining game, does not strike me as the sort of thing you would campaign with over a long period of time.

1st: That’s true. Range increments have never really been a problem in any of my games. We tend to come up with responses beforehand and then never are actually far enough away for it to matter. I’d agree in general with the non-bipoded weapon bracing, actually. It may be covered in the case of being prone already, but I think a simple house rule is sufficient 🙂

2nd: Indeed. Sadly, being a full-time student and a couple of other things leaves me little time for gaming, so this will be a one-off thing. I think Shambles should serve nicely in that regard. Easy to learn, fun to play, and generally wacky. I’d kind of like to consider running an RPG where the characters are just at some truck stop in the midwest and that’s the whole game. No guns, no spookies, nothing. Just…people. And cars, of course *grins wickedly*.